Method of making wire lath



Feb. 17, 1953 STOCKTON 2,628,642

METHOD OF MAKING WIRE LATH Filed May 20, 1948 2? P $.11. INVENTOR,

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HTTOBNEVS Patented Feb. 17, 1953 METHOD OF MAKING WIRE LATH Raymond F. Stockton, Sunland, Calif., assignor to Ray F. Stockton Wire Products Co. Inc., Burbank, Calif., a corporation of California Application May 20 1948, Serial No. 28,235

2 Claims.

This invention relates to wire and the method of forming the wire and in particular relates to self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire and the method of making the wires.

An object of this invention is to provide a simple method for makin self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire.

Another object of this invention is to provide a self-furring-pl-aster-reenforcing wire which is so formed as to hold plaster more securely than has heretofore been possible.'

Another object of this invention is to provide self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire which comprises a plurality of pieces of sinuously bent wire, the convolutes of which are approximately the same size and the pieces of bent wire bein arranged in shingled fashion and spot welded together.

Another object of this invention is to provide a method of making self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire which consists in putting convolutes in at least two wires to obtain two sinuously bent wires, overlapping closed ends of convolutes of one sinuously bent wire with closed ends of convolutes of the other sinuously bent wire, and spot welding overlapped closed ends together.

Another object of this invention is to provide a simple method of making self-furring-plasterreenforcing wire which method encompasses bending the wire to put convolutes therein and immediately thereafter overlapping closed ends of the convolutes and spot welding the overlapped closed ends of the convolutes together just after they are overlapped.

With the foregoing and other objects in view, which will be made manifest in the following detailed description and specifically pointed out in the appended claims, reference is had to the accompanying drawings for an illustrative embodiment of the invention, wherein:

Figs. 1 to 5 disclose a diagrammatic sequence of the steps illustrating one method of forming the self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire;

Figs. 6 through 10 disclose a diagrammatic sequence of the steps illustrating a modified method of forming the self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire;

Fig. 11 discloses a plan view of a set-up to show a method of combining two units of self-furringplaster-reenforcing wire; and

Fig. 12 is a sectional view along lines l2-l2 of Fig. 11 and shows a cross section of the selffurring-plaster-reenforcing wire.

Referring to the accompanying drawings wherein similar reference characters designate similar parts throughout, Fig. 1 discloses two wires l6 and I! which are fed by means of a feeding arm 01' means l8 through a form block IS the wires straddling the weaving or spreading arms 20 and being held by holding arms 2|. Wires l6 and l 1 have been formed into convolutes back of holding arms 2i and rest on rails 22 and are moved together in overlapping relationship by guides 23. r The method illustrated in Figs. 1 to 5 is as follows. In Fig. 1, the holding arms 2| have clamped the wires l6 and i1 between them, the spreading arms 20 are about to open, and the form block I9 is about to move forward, and the feeding arm l8 has been moving forward and is still moving forward. In Fig. 2, the spreading arms 20 have moved apart and are beginning to form oppositely facing convolutes in wires l6 and I1 and form block I9 is moving forward in ste with the movement of feeding arm l8, and the convolutes behind holding arms 2] are stationary. I

In Fig. 3, the spreading arms have moved to their outermost position and the form block l9 has moved upwardly to form the outer or lower sides of the convolutes, the feeding arm is about to quickly move downward to grasp another portion of each of the wires l6 and I1. In Fig. 4, the feeding arm l8 has reached its downmost position, has grasped portions of wires l6 and I1 and is about to move upwardly again, form block 19 is moving downwardly and the spreading arms 20 have moved inwardly to a collapsed position, and the holding arms 2| are moving downwardly to release their hold on the wires l6 and I1.

In Fig. 5, the feeding arm l8 has moved forward and since the holding arms 2| have released their grasp on wires l6 and I1, the oppositely facing convolutes just formed are moved over the holding arms and the spreading arms 20 are moving in between wires l6 and I1 and form block I9 is still moving in a backward'direction but is about to move forward again. .The next sequence of events can be seen by viewing Fig. 1 again, in which the feeding arm l8 has moved from the position shown in Fig. 5 to the position shown in Fig. 1 and the spreading arms 20 are about to spread apart to form oppositely facing 1 means he provided to insure that the inner convolutes or one of the sinuously bent wires will always overlap th inner closed ends of the convolutes on the other sinuously bent wire. Any suitable means may be provided for a spot welding operation which preferably takes place just after the inner closed ends are overlapped by the guides 23 and this will preferably take place after the holding arms 2| have clamped wires l6 and H together so that the spot welding operation will preferably take place during the forming of convolutes in wires I 6 and 11. It is not absolutely necessary for the spot welding operation to take place immediately after the convolutes are formed but it is preferred that the spot welding operation takes place just after the convolutes are formed, that is, within a range of three or four convolutes.

It will be seen that the method disclosed in Figs. 1 through 5 is simple, effective and produces a self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire in which two pieces of sinuously bent wire are arranged in shingled fashion and closed ends on one wire are spot welded to closed ends of the other wire and since the wire is arranged in shingled fashion there will be provided wedges into which the plaster will be forced and therefore the plaster will be firmly held in place.

Figs. 6 through disclose a modified metho of forming the self-furring-plaster-reenforein wire and in this method the form block l9 doe not move as in the method disclosed in Figs. through5. The spreading arms in this method only spread apart and do not move away from holding arms 2| in a down direction as occurs in Figs. 1 through 5.

The method disclosed in Figs. 6 through 10 consists of the following steps. In Fig. 6, the holding arms 2| have just clamped wires l6 and I! together, spreading arms 20 are about to spread apart to form a convolute and feeding arm i8 is moving forward and just moved forward to enable the holding arms 2| to clamp behind the just formed oppositely facing convolutes in wires [6 and IT.

In Fig. 7, the spreading arms 20 have started to spread apart and the feeding arm [8 is moving forward to supply the wire for this spreading operation. In Fig. 8, the spreading arms 20 have moved to their outermost position and the lower or outward faces of the opposed convolutes are formed by form block l9. In Fig. 9, the spreading arms 20 have collapsed and the feeding arm [8 has loosened its hold on wires I5 and I1 and is moving quickly back to grasp other portions of wires l6 and I1 and holding arms 2| are about to move downwardly and release their hold on wires l6 and [1.

In Fig. 10, the feeding arm 18 has grasped new portions of wires [6 and I1 and is moving forward and moving the just formed oppositely facing convolutes over the holding arms. During this movement, the guides 23 will force the inner closed ends of the convolutes to overlap one another and any suitable means may be provided to insure that the inner closed ends of one sinuously bent wire will always overlap the inner closed ends of the other sinuously bent wire. The sequence of events occurring after those shown in Fig. 10 are depicted in Fig. 6 which shows the beginning of the cycle again and it can be seen in Fig. 6 that the holding arms 2! have come back up and grasped the wires 16 and I1 behind the just formed convolutes.

By either of the above methods two wires are arranged in approximate parallel relationship and are moved along and operated on to form 4 oppositely facing convolutes in the wires to form two sinuously bent wires. The words sinuously bent wire in this specification and claims are intended to be used in a very broad sense to include any wires which are bent into zigzag, wavy or like fashion.

The words spot welding as used in the application are intended to be used in a broad sense also and are not intended to be limited to electric spot welding but are intended to cover any type of spot welding and, in fact, although it is preferred that the closed ends of convolutes be spot welded together they could, of course, be brazed or soldered or otherwise fastened together without departing from the scope of the invention.

It is contemplated that several wire bending apparatuses will be used together so that two, three, four, etc. apparatuses could be working synchronously forming self-furring-plasterreenforcing wire into units, a unit being two sinuously bent wires fastened together in shingled fashion. In such case, two units of selffurring-plaster-reenforcing wire could be joined together, as shown in Fig. 11, in which case the small rods 25 are arranged so that the in ner closed ends of the convolutes on opposite wire units are overlapped and any suitable means may be provided to spot weld the overlapped closed ends together, the spot welding preferably taking place just after the ends are overlapped. The guides 21 serve to push the two units of self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire to gether and the rods 25 serve to insure that the inner closed ends of the convolutes on one unit of wire will always overlap the inner closed ends of the convolutes on the other unit of wire. The rails 26 serve only to support the wire during its travel.

Throughout the drawings the plus marks are intended to show when the various parts are stationary and the arrows, of course, showing the direction of movement into which the wire or the other parts are moving. The dotted arrows are used to illustrate the part which it is adjacent is about to move in the direction of the arrow.

Fig. 12 shows the cross section of the selffurring-plaster-reenforcing wire and shows very clearly the shingled relation of the pieces of sinuously bent wire and from this drawing it can be readily appreciated that plaster app ied to such a reenforcing wire would be held in a much superior manner than by prior reenforcing It is the preferable arrangement that the hold ing arms 2| should hold the wires IS and l'." during the time that the feeding arm [8 is moving back to grasp new portions of the wires l8 and I! and this period may be called the rest period while the period during which the feeding arm I8 is moving forward with the wires (8 and if may be termed the period of movement or feeding; period.

The form block [9, the feeding arm l3, and the holding arms 2! serve to arrange the i8 and I 1 next to one another along in the general direction in approximate parallel tionship.

It is not particularly important at what particular time the spot welding operation takes place, that is, during the feeding period or the rest period but as before brought out it is preferred that the spot welding operation take place during the feeding period. However, it is desirable that the spot welding operation take place synchronously with successive bending operations, the

relaword synchronously not being used to mean necessarily simultaneously but more of in step with the bending operation so that for every bending operation there is a spot welding operation.

Although the bending operation as shown in the drawings shows spreading arms 20 as moving outwardly it is obvious that convolutes could be put in the wires with equal facility by having arms 20 which could move inwardly bending two spaced approximate parallel wires toward one another to form oppositely faced convolutes in the wires and the invention is not intended to be limited to the spreading operation unless stated in the claims.

Heretofore metal lath or self-furring-plasterreenforcing wire has had a selvedged edge or a woven edge on the wire which, though efiective for its purpose, entailed an expense and more complicated machines than was desired. In the present invention, it is not necessary to have a selvedged edge but the edge of the self-furringplaster-reenforcing wire will be left free so that there will be a convoluted edge. Therefore, the selvedged edge operation is eliminated and it was obvious that the convoluted edge will function just as effectively as the selvedged edge without requiring the expense of a selvedged edge.

It is also contemplated that self-furringplaster-reenforcing Wire will be formed by moving at least two wires along into a bending zone, putting convolutes in the wires in a manner such that the convolutes of one Wire are approximately at right angles to the convolutes of the other wire and oppositely facing thereto, and moving the convolutes as they are formed into a spot welding zone and, maintaining the right angled relationship, and causing the inner closed ends of opposed convolutes to be in contacting relationship and spot welding the contacting closed ends to- I gether. Thi method produces a right angled self-furring-plaster-reenforcing wire and it is contemplated that closed ends of the convolutes of the wires will be in contacting relationship when they are spot welded together, that is, in abutting relationship one closed end of a convolute slightly overlapping or underlapping the other convolute, the important point bein that they are in contacting relationship. By this method a right angled self-furring-plasterreenforcing wire is produced which lends itself to be applied to corners and it i contemplated that sheets of wire may be formed having a right angle on one edge thereof or that special right angled pieces will be made and plain sheets without right angled edges, whichever is desired.

Various changes may be made in the details of construction without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The method of forming wire lath comprising feeding a pair of wires along and in parallel side by side relationship, holding the wires stationary at a first point, confining the wires together at a second point spaced in advance of the first point while moving the portions of wires forwardly of the second point toward the first point and simultaneously moving the portions of the wires between the points outwardly with respect to one another to permanently deform the wire and form convolutes or sinuosities in the wires, then releasing the wires at the first point and moving the wires forward While causing portions of the wires forwardly of said first point to overlap, and spot welding the overlapped portions together.

2. The method of forming wire lath comprising feeding a pair of wires along and in parallel sideby-side relationship, holding the Wires stationary at a first point, confining the wires together at a second point spaced in advance of the first point while moving the portions of the wires confined together at the second point toward the first point and simultaneously moving the portions of the wires between the points outwardly with respect to one another to permanently deform the wires and form convolutes or sinuosities in the wires, then releasing the wires at said first point and moving the wires forwardly while causing portions of the wires at said first point to overlap, and permanently securing the overlapped portions together.

RAYMOND F. STOCKTON.

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Nmnber Name Date 485,728 Tatro Nov. 8, 1892 857,307 Rush June 18, 1907 858,065 Barnes Oct. 15, 1907 988,001 Lidseen Mar. 28, 1911 1,270,129 Dwiggins June 18, 1918 1,798,531 Hall Mar. 31, 1931 1,897,803 Herbest Feb. 14, 1933 2,000,788 Reed May 5, 1935 2,048,341 Kitselman July 21, 1936 2,116,780 Chartener May 10, 1938 2,124,799 Specht July 26, 1938 2,485,282 Green Oct. 18, 1949 

